Field of the Invention
The present disclosure generally relates to management and control and, more particularly, to a management system, a control method, and to a technique for managing a three-dimensional (3D) printer that creates a three-dimensional object.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, 3D printers have become rapidly widespread. The term “3D printer” is a general term for a control apparatus that creates a 3D object based on special model data. A technique for creating the 3D object is also referred to as additive manufacturing. In contrast, a two-dimensional (2D) printer represents a printing machine for printing an image, for example, on paper (a sheet) in a planar manner.
The 3D printers have been already in practical use. However, the 3D printers have been used only in certain kinds of industry or for certain purposes due to their large size, handling difficulty, and necessity of a dedicated and/or special facility or material.
Meanwhile, with recent technological advancement in the field of 3D printers, various creation methods have been proposed and/or practically used, and the number of 3D printers employing fused deposition modeling (FDM) among the various creation methods is rapidly increasing. Such a 3D printer is less expensive and readily operable by general consumers.
Moreover, commercial 3D printers with various creation methods, functions, and/or performance capabilities for manufacturers and companies in various industries have been practically used. The commercial 3D printer has been used for various applications including production of a prototype and a product component, and has been rapidly widespread.
On the other hand, in the field of related-art 2D printers, there are various applications for managing and/or operating such printers.
There are printer management applications that report a running cost and/or an environment load of an office printer. The printer management applications can compare cases where a print setting such as two-side printing and an N in 1 page layout is applied or not applied, so that a cost saving effect or a resource saving effect can be reported and/or simulated.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-317137 discusses a method for simulating a saving effect by changing a setting of printer function restriction such as prohibition of one-side, color, and/or 1 in 1 printing.
The 3D printer consumes a longer output time per job (e.g., tens of minutes to several hours) than the 2D printer. In general, 3D printers for companies (commercial 3D printers) are capable of outputting a prototype and a product with higher performance and/or higher accuracy, and are more expensive than those for general consumers. Hence, the commercial 3D printer is generally introduced to one department within a company.
Similar to the 2D printer, the 3D printer is expected to report saving effects of costs, electricity, and/or consumable goods according to a change in output setting item.
However, since the 3D printer has the above-described characteristics in which the number of 3D printers is smaller than that of 2D printers and an output time of the 3D printer is longer than that of the 2D printer, an appealing item of the 3D printer as a saving effect should differ from that of the 2D printer. For example, if the appeal of the 3D printer is output-time saving, items such as a change in the number of units produced per day and a change in output time of the 3D printer, that is, a change in operation hours, need to be reported.
Moreover, output settings that can be set to the 3D printer differ from those settable to the 2D printer, and result data that can be acquired from the 3D printer differs from that acquirable from the 2D printer.
For example, attributes that can be set to output settings of the 2D printer include a one-side/two-side printing, an N in 1 page layout, and a color/monochrome printing.
On the other hand, attributes that can be set to output settings of the 3D printer include a material type, material color, a creation speed, a nozzle temperature, a lamination pitch, and a fill density.
The result data that can be acquired from the 2D printer includes sheet size, color/monochrome printing, and the number of printed sheets.
On the other hand, the result data which can be acquired from the 3D printer includes a material use amount and an output time in addition to the material type, the material color, the creation speed, the nozzle temperature, the lamination pitch, and the fill density.
The technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-317137 is for managing and/or controlling the 2D printer. Such technique does not allow a saving effect to be output and/or displayed in consideration of the above-described characteristics of the 3D printer and/or the above-described differences between the 3D printer and the 2D printer. Consequently, such technique cannot be used to manage the 3D printer.